


Leon the Long Suffering

by OnceFutureEmrys



Series: My Camelove Fill 2021 [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Men Crying, People get the hugs that they deserve, and his home, knights of round table show up briefly, leon finds his family, mentions of internalized acephobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29671224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceFutureEmrys/pseuds/OnceFutureEmrys
Summary: Leon has always felt that he was different.He soon realizes that he might be a bit weird, but he is far from different.
Relationships: Knights of the Round Table & Leon (Merlin), Leon & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Leon & Merlin (Merlin), Leon & Morgana (Merlin)
Series: My Camelove Fill 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180301
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Camelove 2021, Merlin Bingo





	Leon the Long Suffering

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo everyone! 
> 
> This is for camelove cupid's aro as well as for my Merlin bingo for asexuality!
> 
> Some notes: there is some internalized acephobia but that gets resolved by the end of the story. 
> 
> This story is set in modern times, but Leon is a teenager during the 2000s times hence the reference to Harry Potter starting up. I wanted to highlight how asexuality is often the "invisible" sexuality because it has existed for so long, but only recently has been seen as a part of the LGBTQ+ community. (And there are still people who continue to gate keep asexuality and aromantics from this group). I hope I've illustrated a little about how we still live in not just a heteronormative society, but a society that still values sex and perpetuates the argument that sex is necessary in relationships. It's the reason in this story Leon thinks he's different -- because everyone seems to value sex above all else. 
> 
> Anyway sorry for the rant above, I think strongly of this topic and I'm happy to be writing about it. 
> 
> My italics stopped working towards the end of the story for some reason but I think you can still understand what's happening pretty clearly. I'll try to edit it later to make sure that those are visible next time around. 
> 
> If anyone who reads this is ace/aro or somewhere on the spectrum, let me know if I conveyed the feeling of being asexual pretty well. I'm always looking to grow as a writer and learn more about other people's experiences so please let me know!
> 
> And finally, I am clearly not British haha so if any British people can tell me what to change to make it more British sounding, let me know!!
> 
> Sorry for the long note section! Hope you enjoy!!

Ever since Leon was a young boy, he has always felt weird.

Not just because of the fact that he likes to put spinach in his smoothies, which seems to freak out a lot of the weird kids. Not just because he started liking black coffee at the age of seven, which apparently _wasn’t_ the proper age for him to experience a coffee addiction. (He blamed his parents for that one). 

But largely Leon had always felt weird because he had always felt like an outsider. When boys started to pull girls pigtails and they, in turn, screamed “I hate you” as both of their declarations of love, Leon often didn’t… care. He didn’t really have a crush on anybody, and he didn’t really care that he wasn’t ‘dating’ anyone back then. (Or whatever young six years old’s think dating is).

Some of the boys had thought he was weird for not finding any of the girls attractive which was when Leon had first started to believe there was indeed something wrong with him.

When he had told Morgana this, however, she had just laughed. “Don’t worry fart face,” he wrinkled his nose at the nickname (it was an accident, alright?) and she ruffled his hair. “You’re probably just waiting for the right woman to come around. I think that’s smart.” 

It made him calm down a bit, to think that perhaps he would and could fall in love, he was just… waiting for the right person. 

* * *

At the start of secondary school, _Harry Potter_ entered the lives of many young children. 

Many of his classmates were obsessed with the books and even his best mate Arthur, who hated reading books, had started to read them when the movies were coming out. 

Secondary school was when everyone became interested in celebrities and in each other. Besides Harry Potter being extremely popular within his teenage years, boy bands like One Direction would take over, and soon teen girls would be swooning over rom com movies and fantasizing over teen boys making grand gestures for their lovers and the teen boys would be glaring at rom com movies for making girls have high expectations for them. (Of course, there would be young teen girls who would be secretly attracted to the other girls and the teen boys who would guiltily be eyeing the men, but Leon had always figured he was the only one different and so he didn't think about it that way back then). 

Sex became a big thing in movies and tv shows and everyone in his secondary school unfortunately became aware of... hormones. 

Everyone was horny, all the time. Everyone wanted to have sex. All. The. Bloody. Time.

Leon quickly realized he was on the shortlist of kids who didn’t want sex. 

He found the whole sex thing to be a bit… odd. He didn’t necessarily hate it, but he had never really thought it was something for him. Arthur had kept telling him that it would change his life when he would finally do it, that he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else afterward, but Leon had his doubts.

He had never really thought about sex, he wasn’t out watching porn often, if at all, and every time he tried to think about it, he just… couldn’t. He just couldn’t imagine having sex. It just seemed too weird to him and so he constantly pushed it off.

It wasn’t like Leon didn’t want love. He wanted to love and someone special in his life, but he just didn’t want… the sex bit. But he really liked cuddles! Cuddles was something Leon quite enjoyed! Cuddles, Leon had decided when he was younger, were absolutely _heavenly_.

There was one night when Leon had stayed over at his best mate's house, Arthur, that he decided to open up to him a little. 

He told Arthur that he didn't really want to have sex, that sex wasn't for him.

Arthur had rolled his eyes and shaken his head in disapproval. “You’re a great mate Leon, and I admire you very much,” Arthur starts, patting his shoulder. “But you’re just a _tiny_ bit weird.”

This was when Leon had felt that there was, indeed, something wrong with him. That if even his mates found him weird, different, abnormal -- then there had to be.

Because it turns out, most people don’t just want cuddles, they want that dreaded _something_ _more_. So Leon had just tried to ignore all of his friends whenever they talked about sex, hoping the sex craze would blow over very soon. But with people becoming more and more obsessed with celebrities and with each other, it was harder and harder to ignore the growing distance that was separating himself from his friends. They all wanted to find girlfriends and boyfriends and Leon wasn’t sure anyone would love him the way he was.

Suffice to say, Leon felt… different. Weird. Wrong. _Bad_.

Leon had tried, truly he had tried, but he could never get to the sex. He was very good at talking to people -- he was well-spoken, he was attentive, he was a good listener -- but sex was different and it made him uncomfortable. Like Leon had said, cuddles were the way into the man’s heart.

People had decided that he was gay, already opting to give him a label before he was even ready for it, and so he had often gotten teased and pushed around because of it. He had tried telling people he wasn’t gay (he might not have had feelings for girls, but he didn’t really seem to have any feelings for boys either) but they never seemed to believe him.

“Why else wouldn’t you have shagged the prettiest girl in our school,” Cedric, a football player, and a proper dick, had asked him one time. “If you aren’t gay, then you’re just an absolute _idiot_.”

Thankfully, he had Arthur and Morgana who were always there to support him and help him when he was down. But still, the mystery remained as he never understood what was wrong with him. He had tried to bury these wrong feelings inside, but if there was one thing Leon hated more than anything, it was pretending to be something he wasn’t.

And so he lived in this limbo of insecurity and unsureness, not sure what exactly he was but knowing for certain it wasn’t good.

And that’s the way he thought for a very long time, until after uni, when one of his mates, Elyan, came out to him as aromantic.

“What’s that?”

“Well… I’m not interested in being in any romantic relationships.”

Leon blinked, confusion swirling in his mind. “You can… be that?”

Elyan furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and slowly nodded his head. “Yes, Leon. People don’t always want to have romantic relationships.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Leon had said, not wanting to offend Elyan. “How did you learn what that was?”

“I told my sister how I was feeling and she recommended me to a… group that talks about different types of people on the spectrum.”

“The spectrum?”

“Yeah, there all different types of people. There are different ranges that people can fall into." 

Leon thinks for a minute before hesitantly asking, “Could I maybe come to one of your meetings?”

Elyan’s eyes widened a bit, but he nodded his head. “Yeah, if you want. Did you want to learn more about it?”

“Yeah,” Leon says before his brain can send him a warning sign. Before his brain can tell him no. “Something like that.”

* * *

Leon walks in hoping he’s made the right choice and comes out feeling like he’s finally found a family.

Elyan can tell by the way his friend smiles that something has changed. “Is everything okay,” he asks.

Leon laughs in a messy and chaotic way and Elyan’s half worried and half-amused. “Yeah. I think for the first time ever, yes.”

“What changed?”

“Oh, you know,” Leon says, winking, and Elyan’s eyes widen. Leon never winks. “I think I’ve finally found my home, that’s all.”

* * *

  
Leon has never felt more loved and safer than he does with this new group.

He meets Merlin, a blue-eyed, black-haired, big-eared, big-hearted man, who answers all of Leon’s questions. He seems a bit amused by Leon’s excitement but doesn’t give him the “what’s wrong with you” face and so Leon counts that as a win. 

He meets Merlin’s best friend, Gwen, who introduces him to Lancelot who introduces him to Percival, and then Gwaine, and suddenly Leon has a group of friends who understand him and love him unconditionally.

He wants to introduce his new group of friends to Arthur and Morgana but to do that, he needs to tell them who he is.

Well, he doesn’t have to. His new friends wouldn’t mind lying to them about where they met if it helped Leon become adjusted, but he feels like that’s a bit unfair to them. Plus, Leon loves Arthur and Morgana. They have been there with him through thick and think, especially when he needed them and he wanted to share all of himself with them.

So he sits them down in his living room with green tea and the football game playing lowly in the background and he takes a deep breath before saying, “I’m asexual.”

Morgana’s eyes widen and Arthur’s furrow in confusion. “What’s that,” Arthur asks.

“Well," Leon says nervously. He licks his lips before continuing saying, "It’s a spectrum, but it’s basically someone who has no sexual desires or feelings.”

“It’s been in the news recently,” Morgana pipes up. “Apparently some show has an asexual character.”

“It’s been around for ages,” Leon can’t help but say. “It’s only now that people are really starting to show it. It’s probably why I didn’t know for ages who I was.”

Morgana and Arthur are silent for a minute before Morgana grins, her face glowing with pride. “I’m so glad you finally figured it out.” She hugs him with such force and so much love that Leon can’t help but hold on to it, to savor it, to keep this feeling in his chest forever.

When she turns to see Arthur standing there mutely, she gestures to head to the bathroom and leaves the room. Not, however, before giving her half-brother a glare. 

“I understand if this changes your perception of me,” Leon starts, not sure where to go from there. Thankfully, he cuts in.

“No, of course not. How could it change my perception? You’re still the same annoyingly nerdy Leon I’ve known for years.” Leon feels his heart warm and he distinctly feels tears threaten to fall but he holds them back. “I just…” Arthur sounds a bit lost, and almost guilty. “I know when we were teenagers, I used to tease you all the time about it.”

“I just…” Arthur seems to be on the verge of tears and Leon’s sure on the edge himself. “I just hope that… what I said didn’t affect you or made you worry about me because I could never…” Arthur chokes up and Leon walks over and hugs Arthur tightly.

Arthur, who rarely hugs anyone, let alone touches someone, hugs back with the same desperation and Arthur keeps saying sorry, he’s so sorry for hurting him, and Leon is telling him that it’s okay, it’s all okay because Arthur is like his brother, the person who knows him better than anyone else, and he knows more than anyone else, that Arthur could never be so cruel.

They stop crying after a while and Arthur and Leon eventually break hold from their hug, having finally found some peace. Leon smiles and Arthur smiles back and this silence is calm and peaceful and--

“Oi,” screams a voice from upstairs. “Did Arthur finally stop being an idiot?” Morgana’s shrieking at this point and usually, he would be annoyed by her antics, but right now, it just felt like home. It reminds him of the memories he has of back when they were children. Where Morgana would scream from her treehouse and force Arthur and Leon to essentially be her slaves. The memories of when they had first learned how to climb trees and Leon couldn’t get that high up and so Arthur, in a show of bravery, attempted to pull Leon up and ended up breaking his arm in the process. 

It reminds him of memories of them in class when he, Arthur, and Morgana would get bored and start imagining their lives years later. 

Morgana would always say that she would turn out to be a fashion model when she was older and Arthur would always talk about becoming a professional football player. Leon had never known -- had always gone back and forth between options, maybe a teacher, or a waiter, or an astronaut -- hoping and praying that one day something would fit and he would feel it in his gut that this was it, this was what he wanted.

Watching his two closest friends arguing at each other, knowing he had finally found a support group who cherished him, he couldn’t imagine wanting anything more than this. 


End file.
